


Waves

by mr_reblogbutton



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, Sadness, Spoilers for the new ep, just sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7061005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mr_reblogbutton/pseuds/mr_reblogbutton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil has been gone for a while.<br/>Cecil won't pick up his phone.<br/>Carlos goes looking for his boyfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waves

Carlos leaves his lab after hours of intense testing, he can’t find any sort of solution to the town’s problem with science (which he is taking offense about). That’s not the problem though,

Cecil won’t pick up the phone.

He hurries through the town with grim purpose, never stopping to look at the wreckage but taking in the desolate, echoing, emptiness of his home. He spies Michelle making out behind a pile of debris with someone who bears a striking resemblance to Maureen (according to Cecil they were just great friends so _clearly_ it couldn’t be Maureen), Larry Leroy is standing in the middle of the ash staring through him and pointing stiffly in the direction of City Hall, and then there was the shadows. Standing shadows that hollow him out and  make his legs weak the longer he holds his stare. Larry Leroy is still pointing and his gaze burns into his back, breaking him from his uneasy fascination. 

Carlos runs.

He runs from the empty people but the feeling persists within him.

An odd anxious feeling radiates from his gut, all of his worries and concerns rise like a tidal wave in his ears. The voices whisper and shout and Carlos clamps his hands over his ears to shut out the cacophony but only succeeds in trapping the doubts within him. 

The wave breaks.

Carlos understands. He knows how easy it is to give in. No one but yourself can truly make you a stranger. It is instilled you by fears, by concerns, doubts, self hatred. Did he really know himself? What does he even know? No one will know him better than himself but how can he say he is Carlos the Scientist when he is losing track of who he truly is? This is the way he alienates himself, this is the way he can become one of them. A stranger to himself, but feeling like a stranger to others.

His chest feels empty and he nearly collapses from the burden of weightlessness. His breaths are ragged and his steps clumsy.

Carlos pulls himself up the steps of the city council’s last refuge, leaning heavily on the handrail. He trips on the final step and lands in a heap at the top of the steps. He struggles to lift his head but when he does he sees a phone; Cecil’s phone.The recording app is still open and the red light flashing.

A foot comes into his line of sight and slowly steps on the cell phone, every crack of the glass and plastic resonates within him like nothing he has ever experienced thus far.

Slowly, Carlos raises his eyes. The figure is  hard to make out, dark and shadowy despite standing before him.

The voices silence themselves.

He feels as though he has walked into a theatre in the middle of the climax with no context.

A hush he can’t explain but he knows will change the course of history.

A pair of cracked glasses fall from the figure’s face as it looks down to meet his eyes. In its arms a beagle puppy.

He is a stranger. 

No.

Carlos would recognize him anywhere.

He is Cecil. 

The second wave hits, not with a bang but with the din of a whisper


End file.
